Kim Gordon, Voice Of Reason

In a long-ranging interview with The Guardian, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon touched on the “whole machinery you have to build up” in order to sell an album these days, and why the whole idea of “The Radiohead Model” is at its core an art-devaluing myth:

“They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever. It was a good marketing ploy and I wish I’d thought of it! But we’re not in that position either. We might not have been able to put out a record for another couple of years if we’d done it ourselves: it’s a lot of work. And it takes away from the actual making music.”

Not that a level-headed comment by someone who actually makes music and who’s seen the machinations of the business over time will necessarily stop the ravings of the tech-obsessed types who think that Thom Yorke and Trent Reznor are representative of every working musician and the resources they have to work with, but I figured passing this along couldn’t hurt. Art-punk band Sonic Youth talks to David Peschek [Guardian] Earlier: Dear Journalists: Please Use This Definition Of “The Radiohead Model” Going Forward